Tag Archives: feminism

Luke Skywalker has vanished.
In his absence, the sinister
FIRST ORDER has risen
from the ashes of the Empire
and will not rest until Skywalker, the last Jedi,
has been destroyed.

With the support of the REPUBLIC, General Leia Organa leads a brave RESISTANCE.
She is desperate to find her
brother Luke and gain his
help in restoring peace and
justice to the galaxy.

Leia has sent her most daring
pilot on a secret mission
to Jakku, where an old ally
has discovered a clue to
Luke’s whereabouts . . .

In itself this title sequence more than provides the exposition. It sets up a new kind of story with a shift in who gets to be front and center.

Luke is gone. In fact, he won’t be the hero-leader of the story at all. All of the other characters will make a new narrative and show what they have to contribute, front and center. The second paragraph introduces “General Leia Organa” – no longer Princess Leia and not Mrs. Leia Solo either. She is the active one as she organizes the search, while Luke remains passive, waiting to be found. In fact, Luke doesn’t have a single line in the film, only waiting as active Rey sets out to find him, much as Princess Leia waited the first time around. “Leia is in need of finding in A New Hope, so Luke is in need of finding in The Force Awakens” (VanDerWerff). In the book, Rey’s thoughts provide a fun callback to this switchover:

His hair and beard were white, and his countenance was haunted. He did not speak, nor did she.

Remembering, Rey reached into her pack and removed his Lightsaber. Taking several steps forward, she held it out to him. An offer. A plea. The galaxy’s only hope.

All this sets the scene for a far different Star Wars universe, one that’s been changing for a while:

There has been a noticeable increase of prominent women in Star Wars; most notably with Ahsoka and Ventress in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and Hera and Sabine in Star Wars Rebels. But in these cartoons they are still supporting players in Anakin and Ezra’s stories. They are most certainly included, even at times emphasized, and in the case of Ahsoka receive a great amount of development, but they are never the character who’s central to the story. (Moran)

Certainly, there have been strong women in Star Wars (well, two of them) with more in the less-popular television shows and novelizations. However, women’s roles in the franchise have always been sidelined. Certainly, Leia was bold and powerful in her time: When attacked by Stormtroopers in her first scene, the senator in modest white with giant hair buns snatches a blaster. She even shoots first. Unleashing her powerful tongue while imprisoned by the Empire, she mocks them all with “Darth Vader, only you could be so bold,” “Governor Tarkin, I should have expected to find you holding Vader’s leash. I recognized your foul stench when I was brought on board,” and the memorable, “Aren’t you a little short for a Stormtrooper?”

Billie Lourd says, “When I noticed the movie for the first time, I noticed my mom was not only as confident and strong as the men, she was one of the most confident characters in the entire film. It made me realize women are just as powerful as men and that we can truly do anything they can (if not more)” (“Billie Lourd,” 52).

While Han Solo shirks responsibility and Luke Skywalker fumbles around with his evolving, boyish perception of the hero, Leia gets things done. When her own rescue goes awry, she grabs the blaster herself and finds a way out. She’s not just a princess but a radical fighting for freedom under a tyrannical empire.

“She had contempt for and worked with men, and I liked that,” Fisher says. “There was something human about her. It showed that she could do whatever she needed to do, and if she could do that, then everybody could do it. People identified with her. She’s like a superhero.” (Woerner, “Women”)

Nonetheless, she’s the goal of the story for Luke – the princess needing rescue, not the hero growing in power. Of course, her most problematic moment is watching her lie there on display in her gold bikini to please Jabba and the male audience. (In Leia’s prequel book to The Force Awakens, she refuses “a two-piece brown swimsuit adorned with gold braid” and insists on dressing more modestly in a joking homage) (Castellucci 132). Her romance is less problematic, conducted between fellow fighters basically equal in power (most of the time she outranks Han but they’re on his ship and neither intimidates the other).

Meanwhile, she values her fighting ability and perception but uses neither to become a Jedi knight. J.J. Abrams notes that he, co-writer Lawrence Kasdan and even George Lucas had discussed this issue together but decided against it:

It was a great question, and one we talked about quite a bit even with Carrie [Fisher]. If there is ‘another’ why not take advantage of this natural Force strength this character had? And one of the answers was that it was simply a choice she made, that her decision to run the rebellion and ultimately this Resistance, and consider herself a General as opposed to a Jedi, it was simply a choice that she took. Not that there isn’t any regret that should could have and didn’t. But clearly we’ve seen and we do again, she is clearly Force strong. (Abrams, “Why Didn’t”)

In the new story, she leads the Resistance, but only behind the scenes.

Like Leia, Padmé starts strong but then fades away, literally. On Tatooine she proves able to explore the desert world and take care of herself, though she only makes feeble protests at Qui-Gon’s high-handedness. Episode two, the queen fights for her life in a gladiator pit, but also has her clothing artistically slashed through the revealing white fabric. A great deal of time is spent lounging in gorgeous, impractical outfits while Anakin protects her from scary killers. The third is the worst:

Amidala gives up everything, including the will to live, when the love of her life (Anakin Skywalker) turns to evil. She physically dies of a broken heart while cry-birthing Luke and Leia Skywalker. Padmé doesn’t even get the glory of living on as a political martyr; her whole story is swept under the rug so Darth Vader can take the stage. (Woerner, “Women”)

All this is why Rey is such a shakeup. Obviously, she’s completely strong and capable in every scene. In fact, Star Wars not only makes big strides at putting a female front and center, but also at not dwelling on it. No one calls her “princess” or implies she’s too sheltered – which she isn’t. In fact, she’s the first female character growing up outside of privilege – scavenger rather than ruler or senator. “She feels very modern,” Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy says of Rey. “I think she will be relevant to audiences today, she embodies that sense of self-reliance and independence. I think that’s who she is” (Woerner, “Women”).

Yet it isn’t until she meets Finn (John Boyega) where we get to relish watching her defy gender stereotypes. Within minutes of screen time, she disarms Finn with her spear, hides them both from stormtroopers, rescues him — no more hand-holding! — and flies the Millennium Falcon. Just like that, Finn is forced to abandon those quaint, traditional gender-role ideas that were programmed into him since birth by the dictatorial First Order. (If only Earth could adapt as quickly.) (Sperling)

On their first meeting, Finn strides in to rescue her, only to see her outfight all the goons attacking her without any help. Working on the Falcon, Finn is helpless with tools and Rey must direct him in another gender-flip. When he infiltrates the Starkiller Base to rescue her, he finds she’s already saved herself. Likewise, when he takes on Ren with a lightsaber, Rey is the one to win the duel, then save Finn after. The only one Finn actually rescues is the male Poe.

“I hope Rey will be something of a girl power figure,” Ridley says proudly. “She will have some impact in a girl power-y way. She’s brave and she’s vulnerable and she’s so nuanced … She doesn’t have to be one thing to embody a woman in a film. It just so happens she’s a woman but she transcends gender. She’s going to speak to men and women.” (Howard)

There are other flips on traditional gender roles. Though it’s kept family friendly, Kylo Ren violates Rey’s mind, and she fights back, violating his in response and reclaiming her power. She reveals him as a scared little boy playing Vader-dress-up rather than a real supervillain.

Rey thus stands out as a shining role model. One critic relates:

Leaving the theater, my girls felt as empowered as their brother usually does after seeing one of the many blockbusters built for him. They never commented on how pretty Rey is. They never had to flinch because Rey was a sexual object to some man in power. They just felt strong. Equal. I can only imagine how the film will feel to girls in parts of the world where women are not allowed control over their own bodies or hearts or minds. Imagine a generation of both sexes, growing up believing that girls are powerful. Imagine the force of a billion girls realizing that, one day, they can rule the galaxy. (Sperling)

Another noticeable change is how the women suddenly appear everywhere. Maz and Leia ensure that Rey isn’t the only woman in the galaxy – a problem Leia always had.

The rest of the women in the Star Wars prequels and originals were sidelined to cantina bar stools or Coruscant hallways, banished as background players or imprisoned dancers, with the occasional exception of a Mon Mothma cameo (“Many Bothans died…”). This list becomes only more frustrating when compiled with deleted scenes from Return of the Jedi that revealed footage of multiple female rebel pilots attacking the Death Star. Sadly, most of the lady rebels wound up on the cutting-room floor, save for one pilot whose small line was dubbed over with the voice of a man in the finished film. (Woerner, “Women”)

This time, “Abrams acknowledges the past while fashioning his own pluralistic future filled with a female hero, female generals, and even Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie), the galaxy’s first female villain,” added Marlow Stern in The Daily Beast. She concludes: “In this Star Wars, the Force that awakens is woman” (Howard). On Jakku, the first villager who pulls out a blaster to defend them all from Stormtroopers is a woman. Female faces casually appear with Jess the fighter pilot, Rebellion Doctor Kalonia, and some of the aliens on Jakku and Maz’s bar. There’s K-T, the pink companion for R2-D2. Even Leia’s biographer droid Peazy has a female voice. Niima Base itself is named for “old Niima the Hutt herself” (Fry, Rey’s Survival Guide). Carrie Fisher jokes, “It’s good to have a little help. I liked being the only one when I was 19…now I need some backup” (Breznican, “The Force Awakens” 84).

The Bechdel test (named for comic strip creator Alison Bechdel) insists that a film or show must meet the following criteria:

It includes at least two women

who have at least one conversation

about something other than a man or men

This is not the only criteria for a feminist film, and it certainly has its flaws as a theory, yet it also emphasizes how many women in films take the role of sidekick or girlfriend whose only purpose is to aid the hero on his quest and worry about his problems. Famously, the first trilogy, with only Leia beside a few shots of Aunt Beru and Mon Mothma, does not pass, despite Leia’s strength.

The prequels, however, do, at least somewhat. Episode I has Padmé and Anakin’s mother, Shmi, discussing politics. Episode II watches Padmé and the queen discuss whether the Naboo people should leave the Republic. Episode III, however, does not pass, thanks to a lack of conversation between female characters.

More problematic is these heroines’ purpose in the stories: Leia is the inspiration for Luke and Han’s heroism as they fight to save the princess. Padmé, likewise, is the great catalyst of Anakin’s life, fueling his descent into evil. The women’s own desires are sublimated under the heroes’ struggles and the become only the Anima, the woman who guides the hero to understand his undeveloped feminine side.

Rey, meanwhile, makes her own choices and drives her own narrative. Han, Chewie, and BB-8 appear more to aid her story than their own. While Rey barely encounters Leia onscreen, Maz fills the role of mentor and aids her through the Bechdel issue.

“Star Wars was always a boy’s thing, and a movie that dads could take their sons to. And although that is still very much the case, I was really hoping this could be a movie that mothers could take their daughters to as well,” Abrams said during a November appearance on “Good Morning America.” (Howard)

Maz and Older Leia’s roles certainly wave to the mothers as well as daughters. While Yoda is a power fighter in Attack of the Clones, Maz’s strength seems to derive from quietly surviving, observing, and advising, seeing much that others do not. She’s a grandmotherly figure in homespun, unusual in the galaxy and certainly unique to action films.

Maz is in many ways the new queen of the franchise: The symbols on the flags outside her castle include Boba Fett’s Mythosaur skull, Ziro the Hutt’s Black Sun tattoo, the Broken Horn from Star Wars: Rebels, pod racer insignia, and Hondo Ohnaka’s pirate symbol. There’s also the 501st Legion, international fan-based organization that builds and cosplays armor from the franchise. This subtly suggests that women, even grandmothers, can be fans too – this isn’t just a world for teen boys.

There’s also the return of Leia, no longer an action girl and young romantic heroine as she used to be, but a loving mother and wife (or at least conflicted ex-wife). Though she’s not a nineteen-year-old action heroine, she still gets moments of romance:

Leia: You know, as much as we fought, I always hated it when you left.

Han Solo: That’s why I did it, so that you’d miss me.

Leia: I do miss you.

In the novelization, she’s shown making more important choices, from sending a representative to plead with the Senate to determining her son’s future:

“[Snoke] knew our child would be strong with the Force. That he was born with equal potential for good or evil.”

“You knew this from the beginning? Why didn’t you tell me?”

She sighed. “Many reasons. I was hoping that I was wrong, that it wasn’t true. I hoped I could sway him, turn him away from the dark side, without having to involve you.” A small smile appeared. “You had— you have— wonderful qualities, Han, but patience and understanding were never among them. I was afraid that your reactions would only drive him farther to the dark side. I thought I could shield him from Snoke’s influence and you from what was happening.”

Her voice dropped. “It’s clear now that I was wrong. Whether your involvement would have made a difference, we’ll never know.”

Along with her relationship with her rebellious son (described but not seen onscreen) she takes a motherly interest in Rey, the new romantic and action heroine. Of course, Rey is likely either her daughter or her niece – many viewers wondered if before Leia’s embrace and farewell, Leia imparted this information. She sends Rey off with “May the Force be with you,” symbolically passing the torch of adventuring to the next generation. As the mature princess and love interest, she’s another character unusual in this sort of film.

Another twist is that Phasma, the “Chrome Trooper” played by Gwendoline Christie, was originally designed as male.

After The Force Awakens unveiled its first cast photo, featuring only one new female character, online media outlets (including io9) criticized the male-dominated cast—and it turns out this was a major factor in their decision.

“Everything was happening simultaneously,” [writer Lawrence] Kasdan told Vulture. “When the idea came up to make Phasma female, it was instantaneous: Everyone just said, ‘Yes. That’s great.” (Lussier, “Gwendoline Christie”)

While this Stormtrooper captain role would generally be taken by a man, the more interesting fact is that she never removes her mask – only her long ponytail and voice identify her as female.

“What feels so modern about Captain Phasma is that we are used to forming our immediate relationships with female characters, conventionally, due to the way they are made flesh,” Christie told io9. “So for us to form our immediately and initial relationship with this character, who happens to be a female character, who happens to be Star Wars’ first female villain on screen, I felt that was really modern. That we respond to her through her character and her actions initially rather than the way she’s made flesh.” (Lussier, “Gwendoline Christie”)

Her appearance emphasizes that the Empire and its splinter groups have women (and perhaps have always had women no one has seen) Likewise, the First Order has seemingly shed the speciesist philosophies of the old Empire, since now their leader Snoke is an alien. In a universe where aliens represent people of color, this is a clear shift in the metaphor. No longer are the Aryan Nazis preying on the Wookies and other marginalized races.

More directly, people of color are now scattered through the universe, along with women. Casually in many scenes, there are more Blacks and Asians among the Resistance or in the gangs that board Han Solo’s ship. Leia’s second-in-command is the Asian Admiral Statura. With Poe (whose actor, Oscar Isaac, is Guatemalan), and Finn (John Boyega) front and center, the universe has a lots more diversity all of a sudden. Finn’s unmasking in fact suggests the Stormtroopers might be any race now, unlike their sameness in Attack of the Clones. Thus the universe is being rewritten in a way that allows fans of all races and genders to join in the fun.

Of course, there are still barriers to fight past onscreen. Helen O’Hara, provocative author of “Star Wars Hero Poe Dameron: Is Disney Brave Enough to Make him Gay?” writes: “The time would seem to be coming where we could and should have a hotshot X-wing pilot who happens to be gay.” She adds:

When reunited after believing one another dead, Poe runs towards Finn and throws himself into an embrace; if Finn were a woman, we’d be in little doubt that that was enough to signal interest. Should we doubt it just because they’re both men? The Force Awakens radically put a woman and a black man front-and-centre; why not add a gay man and complete a trifecta of the underrepresented?

Certainly, Poe and Finn are close, and Poe isn’t seen caring for Rey or any other woman onscreen or in his books. The actors played with the issue in an interview while leaving everything open:

“I think it’s very subtle romance that’s happening; you have to watch it a few times to see the little hints. At least I was playing romance; in the cockpit I was playing romance,” joked Oscar Isaac on Ellen the day before the movie came out.

Boyega agreed, “I was playing romance,” – though it wasn’t clear that he was talking about the same scene, or that he was any more serious.

Isaac finished by saying, “I won’t say with which character. It could be a droid.” (O’Hara)

This week my new book Women in Game of Thrones hits stores. In celebration, I wanted to do a post on Martin’s women who didn’t make the book: the women of his novella “The Princess and the Queen,” which takes place centuries before our heroes in A Song of Ice and Fire.

The plot is simple: King Viserys I dies, having made all his lords swear fealty to his daughter Rhaenyra. As the book puts it, “The late king had chosen her as his successor … hundreds of lords and knights had done obeisance to the princess in 105 AC, and sworn solemn oaths to defend her rights” (706). However, his widow, Queen Alicent, favors her own son Aegon, wedded to her own daughter Helena, over her stepdaughter, and convinces many on the Small Council that a son should supersede a daughter. Thus a civil war begins…with dragons. All this is told through a stuffy chronicler, history-book style rather than as a novel.

This is indeed a war of princess and queen as the title suggests, and the depiction of each is notable. Queen Alicent is as scheming as Circe. When her son refuses to take the throne, she points out that his half-sister will slaughter his siblings and children to eliminate those with a stronger claim. Thus the dowager’s manipulations bring about the slaughter. Through the story she appears conniving and power-hungry, even as she operates behind the scenes.

Her rival, Rhaenyra, with the prior claim to the throne, is framed as monstrous. She’s repeatedly called a bitch and most often a “whore.” The first arguments against her claiming the throne is that with her “wanton ways” she will turn King’s Landing into an immoral place (706). Her bastard children will try to inherit, and her husband will be the true power. In this, numerous double standards apply – her rival, Aegon II is “with a paramour” when his father’s death is announced. Yet he is framed as a benevolent figure, who refuses to steal his sister’s birthright until his own brothers and children are threatened. No one in the entire story (except, subtly, his wife) complains about his wanton behavior. He has presumably abandoned or concealed any bastards, in contrast to his sister who unabashedly raises them openly as her heirs. For this responsible act, she is condemned. (Similarly, in A Game of Thrones, Ned raises his bastard, while negligent Robert abandons all of his.)

Another double standard emerges when she’s frankly judged on her appearance: Once Rhaenyra was beloved, “though how many would still fight for her, now that she was a woman wed, her body aged and thickened by six childbirths, was a question none could answer” (712-713). It could be argued that the chronicler or the minds of the time are sexist, more than the novella’s author. However, the word choice used is strongly slanted and emphasizes the gender war occurring: “Every symbol of legitimacy belonged to Aegon…and he was male, which in the eyes of many made him the rightful king, his half sister the usurper” (712, italics added).

Other characters in the novella suffer the same: House Arryn “could not be relied upon [a phrase used for flighty people] for the Eyrie was presently ruled by a woman, Lady Jeyne, the Maiden of the Vale [her martial status is central to her identity], whose own rights might be called into question should Princess Rhaenyra be put aside” [her gender is her defining characteristic and motivator]. Only at the sentence’s end is it made clear she’s unreliable because of her politics, not the nature of her gender. By contrast, the male-led House Baratheon is described in the next paragraph as “staunch in support of the claims” of the family, a far more masculine label. A prophet later insists, “Your wives will dance in gowns of fire, shrieking as they burn, lewd and naked underneath the flames” (761). The husbands of course are described in a nonsexual manner.

Feminist TV makes a fair point in its defense of Cersei, a point that applies to Princess Rhaenyra as well:

I would never proclaim that Cersei Lannister is a “good person”; she is cruel, conniving, and callous. She often acts impulsively based on her passions, and is occasionally blinded by the love she bears for her children and her twin brother Jaime… . However, I would very much say that Cersei is operating in the same value system as the vast majority of characters in this world… . But here’s the thing; most of these “corrupt value system” characters are men, and are therefore seen as “bad-asses,” “heroes,” or “rebels.” Meanwhile, Cersei gets labeled “bitch,” “terrible and whiny,” and “stupid whore” (all quotes taken from various Tumblr conversations). Want to know why? Hint: misogyny! Female characters are traditionally singled out and held to vastly different standards than male characters are, mostly because society at large teaches us that double standards are a- ok (spoiler alert—not true). So while Tywin, Tyrion, and Jaime Lannister get to be cool rebel dudes, Cersei is viewed with an amount of contempt and hatred that’s actually rather shocking (“In Defense of Cersei Lannister”).

Internet fans name Cersei “mean,” “whiny,” and a “bitch.” However, she is no harsher than Tywin, who is often admired for his viciousness. As she voices complaints about powerlessness that echo the misery of Tyrion, Robb, and Jon, she should not be condemned gender- specifically. The author concludes, “Using gendered slurs, even when talking about fictional women, matters. It matters because it propagates a way of thinking and describing women that is deeply and historically sexist. So love Cersei or hate her. Just don’t call her a bitch [“In Defense of Cersei Lannister”]. As all her stepbrothers, the commonfolk, and the story’s description depict Rhaenyra in the same terms, with constant jabs at her aggression, lewdness, and physical body, the same situation emerged, showing much about her people. Basically, every single character appears misogynist, including chronicler and author.

While Rhaenyra insists on her rights, she is unable to claim the throne because she’s on Dragonstone giving birth. The actual birth scene is grotesque: Her “black fury” at the usurpation “seemed to bring on the birth, as if the babe inside her were angry too, and fighting to get out” She curses all her family and the child, which she calls a “monster.”

“The princess shrieked curses all through her labor, calling down the wroth of the gods upon her half brothers and their mother the queen, and detailing the torments she would inflict upon them before she would let them die. She cursed the child inside her too. “Get out,” she screamed, clawing at her swollen belly as her maester and her midwife tried to restrain her. ”Monster, monster, get out, get out, GET OUT!” “When the babe at last came forth, she proved indeed a monster: a stillborn girl, twisted and malformed with a hole in her chest where her heart should have been and a stubby, scaled tail” (711).

The monstrous baby seems a reflection of Rhaenyra’s inner rage and monstrousness, while this evil birth is nearly as foul as Melisandre’s shadow babe. “The patriarchy feared the feminine in connection with her role in birthing and dying even more than in her association with sex” (George 222). Birth, a mystery beyond man’s sphere, thus became demonized, a hideous unholy rite like Melisandre’s, used to kill the good and innocent.

Giving birth to a shadow creature appears to be a female-only power, requiring a womb. However, the feminine birth power is subverted: she creates a force of evil that enables Stannis to kill his closest relative and frames the good women Brienne and Catelyn for the death (in the books, she then births a second shadow creature to kill a loyal retainer of House Baratheon who’s protecting Robert’s innocent bastard son). As such, the most primal female power is depicted as twisted, vile, and obscene. Aside from Daenerys’s monstrous miscarriage, this is the only birth scene shown until Gilly’s child arrives in season three. (Frankel 134)

Daenerys actually has a similar birth scene, with her ambition to save Drogo nearly killing her, as her child too is monstrous:

“He turned his face away. His eyes were haunted. “They say the child was …” She waited, but Ser Jorah could not say it. His face grew dark with shame. He looked half a corpse himself.

“Monstrous,” Mirri Maz Duur finished for him. The knight was a powerful man, yet Dany understood in that moment that the maegi was stronger, and crueler, and infinitely more dangerous. ”Twisted. I drew him forth myself. He was scaled like a lizard, blind, with the stub of a tail and small leather wings like the wings of a bat. When I touched him, the flesh sloughed off the bone, and inside he was full of graveworms and the stink of corruption. He had been dead for years.” (I.756)

Martin appears to dislike birth, one of the world’s few gender-specific actions. Melisandre’s shadow-birth is a vile perversion. Cersei treasonously kills her child with Robert before it’s born. Lyanna (most likely) and Dalla die in childbirth, like Tyrion’s mother. Lysa Arryn loses so many babies that she grows irrational and breastfeeds her seven-year-old child. Gilly and her babe survive, but they are the children of incest and the baby is destined for the White Walkers.

The birth scene and depiction of Rhaenyra are not the only problems. Throughout the novella, many wimpy women appear – victims of the story’s men or even of the romanticism than objectifies them. Queen Helaena, sister-wife of King Aegon, is a pitiful figure. She’s not seen making decisions about the succession or the realm – in fact, the only time she makes a decision, her choice destroys her forever. On a mission of assassination and revenge, a pair of cruel thugs from Flea Bottom bid her choose one of her sons to die (ignoring the less valuable daughter except to threaten rape). She chooses the younger, and the men spitefully strike off the elder’s head. After this, Helaena withdraws from life and sinks “deeper and deeper into madness” (722). When her husband and children flee the palace, they leave her behind for the enemy. While her children’s deaths spur Rhaenyra to fight harder, Helaena and her powerful dragon become worthless noncombatants. She commits suicide at age twenty-one, despairing.

As with the wolves and the Starks, her dragon seems to have inherited the rage she has sublimated. Dreamfyre kills more men in the dragonpits than the other three dragons combined, “ripping men apart and tearing off their limbs even as she loosed her terrible fires” (765). Nonetheless, the dragon dies, her rage leaving the world just as her mistress does.

The women’s roles are romanticized, as Helaena is set up as the tragic Ophelia, abused until she goes mad. Her pain is shown at a distance, with none of the dialogue that Rhaenyra offers. Likewise, “In Flea Bottom, men still speak of a candlemaker’s daughter named Robin who cradled the broken prince [Joffrey] in her arms and gave him comfort as he died, but there is more of legend than history in that tale” (763). She does not even rate a word of her own.

Nettles, a street child near Dragonstone, actually tames the wild dragon Sheepstealer by bringing it a freshly slaughtered sheep each morning. Though she’s skinny, foul-mouthed, filthy and fearless, her abilities win her a place among the lords and ladies…she seems much like Arya, clever and bold. At the same time, however, her mysterious origin (she may or may not have Targaryen blood) and the terribly distant depiction of her make her more puzzle than character – a mystery woman archetype rather than a person.

She fights valiantly, but when she has an affair with Rhaenyra’s husband, the irrational, raging queen orders her death. The queen condemns her for high treason as she’s “said to have become Prince Daemon’s lover.” Once more the doublestandard appears, as she adds, “No harm is to be done to my lord husband” (752). Nettles flies far away and is never seen again. Nettles ends their romance on a tragedy, but exists the mystery woman from first to last. She does not challenge the queen or her royal spouse, but silently accepts exile, covered in blood with cheeks “stained with tears” (753). Her lover sacrifices himself in battle rather than return to his wife and they are thus sentimentalized. In fact, ballads sing that Nettles and her prince were reunited in an unrealistic happy ending. Brash, brilliant Nettles’ greatest achievement and most significant story arc is in the bedroom, not the battlefield.

Alys Rivers, paramour of Prince Aemond (himself the brother of Aegon II), is another clichéd female, this time the perfect lover and seer. She persuades the prince to offer mercy upon receiving bad news from a messenger, then sees in a mountain pool, a storm cloud and a fire, that his enemy awaits him. She rides with her lover on his dragon, “her long hair streaming black behind her, her belly swollen with child” in another glamorized image (754). She is the perfect helpmeet and caregiver even while warning her lover of the future and carrying his child. She is all things to him: support system, lover, mother, and seer.

Finally, Baela Targaryen, daughter of Prince Daemon and Lady Laena, defends her island of Dragonstone from King Aegon II. Her mount is the young Moondancer, “pale green, with horns and crest and wingbones of pearl” (781). Swift and agile as her rider, she and Baela have no chance against the larger, older Sunfyre, but battle him to a draw—Moondancer dead, Sunfyre dying. The men of the castle immediately take her to the healer, awed by her courage. She is brave, beautiful, silent, and idealized once more.

Other characters are strong and powerful, set apart from the unrealistic, muzzled ideals of womanhood. Princess Rhaenys is “five-and-fifty, her face lean and lined, her silver hair streaked with white, yet fierce and fearless as she had been at two-and-twenty” (712). She herself contended for the throne with her brother Viserys, but the (male) lords of the Small Council favored the male claimant, by twenty to one, the exact situation that befalls her niece Rhaenyra. She is “The Queen Who Never Was” and one of the first to die heroically in battle. Her dragon is the ferocious “Red Queen.” Queen Alicant is likewise a force of strength in the series, raising her daughter’s little boy when she goes mad, and defending the city after her son is injured. Both women offer dialogue in council and elsewhere, sharing their thoughts with the readers and growing beyond glamorized images.

When her stepdaughter conquers King’s Landing, Alicent is bound in golden fetters, like female archetypes and goddesses as far back as Hera (who like Alicent committed treason because she didn’t know “her place”). Rhaenyra spares her life “for the sake of our father, who loved you once,” while beheading the Small Council. While a kind gesture, it also emphasizes a woman’s proper place as the king’s beloved.

Rhaenyra, despite her strength, ends the story by going as power-hungry and paranoid as Cersei. Her enemy, Prince Aemond, says, “Rhaenyra may call herself a queen, but she has a woman’s parts, a woman’s faint heart, and a mother’s fears” (740). Her Cersei-like irrationality leads her to condemn her allies to death on suspicion of treachery, until she loses control of the city and her hero-son Joffrey. “The girl that they once cheered as the Realm’s Delight had grown into a grasping and vindictive woman, men said, as cruel as any queen before her” (741). They name her “King Maegor with Teats.” When the mob storms the Dragonpits, she insists, “They are vermin. Drunks and fools and gutter rats. One taste of dragonflame and they will run” (762). She is terribly, destructively wrong.

Although Rhaenyra is in armor, when she sits on the Iron Throne at last, those present witness the throne leaving several cuts on her legs and left hand. The dripping blood is taken as a sign that the throne had rejected her; her days as ruler would be few. This woman, is not suited to sit the throne and the realm must await her heroic brother, the true king. In a less-than-subtle metaphor, as her people rebel, the queen was “clutching so desperately at the Iron Throne that both her hands were bloody” (760).

Even her dragon grows irrational, descending to attack the mob at the Dragonpit instead of attacking them from the air or flying away. After her dragon’s death, the queen dies horribly, cursing her brother Aegon II as his dragon devours her in six bites. Only her terrified, babied son, a Robin Arryn type “like a small pale shadow” called Aegon the Younger (776), rather than a hero, survives.

The queen and the princess thus fought a mighty war, destroying most of the Targaryen dynasty and soon killing off the dragons forever. Both lost nearly all their children, emphasizing the tragic waste caused by female pride and ambition. Their sons are left to claim the throne (Aegon II, then Aegon the Younger) and a law is passed that never again can a queen rule Westeros. Females are thus put in their place.